Suddenly it starts, like giant bells tolling the end of an era. The spoon goes round and round and round, and soon the kitchen, then the house, is ringing with the sound.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Many thanks to the following organisations and people for their help during the writing of this novel:
The Australia Council for a Category B Fellowship granted in 1998.
The Musée de Pont-Aven, Brittany, France, for a two-month residency in October/November, 1998.
Laurie Clancy, Martin Flanagan, Gary Moorhead and Norm De Pomeroy (retired locomotive engine driver, Victorian Railways) for their editorial advice.
Shona Martyn, Linda Funnell, Rod Morrison and Vanessa Radnidge at HarperCollins, and my agent Sonia Land, for their support and enthusiasm.
Finally, my special thanks to Fiona Capp for her constant help, suggestions and advice during the writing of the book.
Angus&Robertson
Twenty-seven-year-old Scotsman David Mackenzie Angus stepped ashore in Australia in 1882, hoping that the climate would improve his health. While working for a Sydney bookseller, he managed to save the grand sum of £50 – enough to open his very own secondhand bookshop. He hired fellow-Scot George Robertson and in 1886 Angus & Robertson was born.
They ventured into publishing in 1888 with a collection of poetry by H. Peden Steele, and by 1895 had a bestseller on their hands with A.B. ‘Banjo’ Paterson’s The Man from Snowy River and Other Verses. A&R confirmed the existence of Australian talent – and an audience hungry for Australian content. The company went on to add some of the most famous names in Australian literature to its list, including Henry Lawson, Norman Lindsay, C.J. Dennis and May Gibbs. Throughout the twentieth century, authors such as Xavier Herbert, Ruth Park, George Johnston and Peter Goldsworthy continued this tradition.
The A&R Australian Classics series is a celebration of the many authors who have contributed to this rich catalogue of Australian literature and to the cultural identity of a nation.
These classics are our indispensable voices. At a time when our culture was still noisy with foreign chatter and clouded by foreign visions, these writers told us our own stories and allowed us to examine and evaluate both our homeplace and our place in the world. – GERALDINE BROOKS
About the Author
Steven Carroll was born in Melbourne. His first novel, Remember Me, Jimmy James, was published in 1992. This was followed by Momoko (1994), The Love Song of Lucy McBride (1998) and then The Art of the Engine Driver (2001), which was shortlisted for both the Miles Franklin Award in 2002 and France’s Prix Femina literary award for the Best Foreign Novel in 2005, The Gift of Speed (2004), which was shortlisted for the Miles Franklin Award in 2005, The Time We Have Taken (2007), which won both the 2008 Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for the South-East Asia and South Pacific Region and the Miles Franklin Award 2008, The Lost Life (2009), which was shortlisted for both the 2010 Barbara Jefferis Award and the ALS Gold Medal 2010, and Spirit of Progress (2011), which was longlisted for the 2012 Miles Franklin Award. His most recent novel is A World of Other People (2013).
Steven Carroll lives in Melbourne with his partner and son.
Other Books by Steven Carroll:
Remember Me, Jimmy James
Momoko
The Love Song of Lucy McBride
The Gift of Speed
The Time We Have Taken
The Lost Life
Spirit of Progress
A World of Other People
Copyright
A&R Classics
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers
First published in 2001 by HarperCollinsPublishers
by HarperCollinsPublishers Australia Pty Ltd
ABN 36 009 913 517
harpercollins.com.au
Copyright © Steven Carroll, 2001
The right of Steven Carroll to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted under the Copyright Amendment (Moral Rights) Act 2000.
This work is copyright. Apart from any use as permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, no part may be reproduced, copied, scanned, stored in a retrieval system, recorded, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
HarperCollinsPublishers
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National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry:
Carroll, Steven, 1949- author.
The art of the engine driver / Steven Carroll.
978 0 7322 9746 6 (pbk)
978 1 7430 9968 1 (epub)
Psychological abuse – Fiction.
A823.3
Cover design by Hazel Lam, HarperCollins Design Studio, based on original design by Darren Holt, HarperCollins Design Studio
Cover image by shutterstock.com
Author photo: Paul Rovere/Fairfax Syndication